The rantings of a working mom of twins with a serious fiber addiction

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Back in October, at the CogKNITive Fiber Retreat, I had purchased a shawl pattern called Winona designed by the lovely Brenda Castiel. I knew as soon as I had seen the sample that I wanted to knit it for my mom for Christmas. I ordered skeins of Miss Babs in Old Gold and Field Mouse and started knitting as soon as they arrived.

My girl likes to help with the pinning.

Blocking under the tree.

Slip stitch patterns are fun!

It was a really fun knit. There is something about slip stitch patterns that makes me really happy. Like turning the heel on a sock. It just feels nice.

I try my best to get things done on time when I am gifting something, but I don’t always make it. Poor Juline gets my gifts late every year, but luckily, she celebrates her birthday pageant style.

Linen Stitch takes awhile.

I wanted to knit something bad, but had no real ideas in mind. I just grabbed some yarn and started knitting a linen stitch swatch, hoping it would serendipitously figure out what it wanted to be.

Linen Stitch Pouch.

It did.

An up close view. I really like these buttons.

I am also a person who has an enormous craft stash. A lot of the time I will think “What could I make to go with this?” and I run to the supplies to see what I can put together. Since I designed jewelry in a former life, I have quite the stash of jewelry supplies just sitting around that are perfect for crafty gifts.

I also dipped into the jewelry making supplies.

I also sent some amazing soap from a soap maker that sells at our local Farmer’s Market. I hope she likes it!

Thanksgiving was small this year. Just me and my husband and our kids. I invited my friend Ashley over because her husband was out of town for work and I don’t think people should be alone during the holidays.

Luckily, my husband loves me a lot and knew I was way too busy to get any actual holiday planning done, so he ordered Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Thumbs up!

Dinner was a success!

After dinner and dessert, Ashley brought out some of her knitting that needed a little TLC. Not too long ago she had a (gasp!)…moth problem, but she also had a shawl that had a burn. Of course, about the time I was going to Google “darning”, the internet took a dump. I had to wing it.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! I hope you are all spending it with the ones you love.

As for me, I am thankful for so many things. I figured I would take a moment to share them with you.

I am thankful for my family. For my parents who embraced my strangeness throughout the years. For my husband who puts up with my constant evolving and leaves his comfort zone so I can explore things out of mine. For my kids, who are weird and wonderful in so many ways.

I am thankful for the friends I have met throughout the years. My sisters in fiber arts and my sisters in podcasting for all of the opportunities they have given me to try new things and meet new people. For all of the creative people I have met on Ravelry, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter…who cheer me on without ever having met me. I’m thankful for the folks that take the time to read my blog.

I am thankful that I have a job that I enjoy. It’s one that puts me in daily contact with friendly, supportive people who encourage my professional and personal pursuits.

Lastly, I am thankful for the long holiday weekend and the time I will have to work on making Christmas gifts!

Now that I am moving full steam ahead on various Work/Birthday/Christmas/Celebration-type projects, I am finding I have very little time to work on anything for myself. I have been wanting to start the Leftie for awhile now, but haven’t had much time to do so. I still don’t really have time to work on it, but at least I started *something*. It’s a garter stitch project, so it makes for some mindless knitting…and it is still small enough to fit in my purse.

Finally, I am getting around to starting the Leftie.

I could have done a stash dive for yarn for this one, but once I saw that Madelinetosh was selling Unicorn Tails, I decided I would just go ahead and buy the yarn. Yeah…I really had to have my arm twisted. I mean…look!

Hopefully I will get some more downtime to work on this soon. Thanksgiving is coming and I don’t have to cook this year. A holiday weekend to catch up on crafts…Hooray!

I have been MIA for quite a while. Things have been pretty exciting here… and I have been pulled in all sorts of directions. Hopefully in the next handful of blog posts I might be able to touch upon some of the things I have been working on… or maybe this will be a boatload of pic spam. I dunno. I am just just rollin’ with it.

Last month, I went to the CogKNITive Fiber Retreat to spend the weekend with Doctor Gemma and all of my other fibery friends. There was good food…good company…and I nearly got kicked out of the hotel. Yeah, it was an exciting weekend!

I spent Friday working on finishing my Kraken Cowl.

I can’t remember if I had mentioned it here before but (*nerd alert*) I modded the Kraken Cowl Pattern chart to adjust the eyes to make it more anatomically correct.

I finished it!

Ladies by the pool…

Listening to Doctor Gemma give the morning announcements.

Jamie and Tally at their booth in the vendor room.

Lunchtime tagging.

Most of the stuff I ended up buying.

Watching a fellow spinner spin luxury fibers on a charkha.

Learning how to work with cotton.

Stephie Jo showing me her awesome spindle!

It was definitely a memorable weekend, despite the craziness! I look forward to going again next year!

Let me just start off by saying I know I have craft ADD lately and that my impulse control is bordering on obscene.

I woke up this morning and, while brushing my teeth, scrolled through Instagram… as is my habit lately. I saw a lovely picture of a tapestry woven by Maryanne Moodie and was awake enough to read the caption.

Oh…reeeeeallly?

Click, click, done.

I’m signed up for the class. See! No impulse control. In this case I am super glad I didn’t wait to make a decision.

Last Saturday Night was the Iron Giant Tribute Show at community/A Little Known Shop in Anaheim, CA. Hooray!! My very first art show!

My family taking a look at all of the awesome art!

Community is a great little space that has small shops, gallery space, a craft space and a great walkway in-between where all sorts of vendors had set up their tables. They had food and music in the back!

Shopping and food!

I got the chance to catch up with my friend Kati who was in town for the weekend.

My mother insisted that I get a picture next to my tapestry. She’s really into sharing this kind of stuff with her friends.

My mother insisted I get this picture for her….

We had a great time and it was so nice to see old friends and meet some new people. I also bought a few things in the shop!